Chapter 83 Setting a Trap for Jin Shu in exchange for the Jade Pendant
Seeing his questioning look, Jin Shu pursed her lips: "Your Highness Prince Jing, you are a prince, and he is his younger brother. You can completely ignore him."
"Am I just a roughneck, a commoner? Do you think I have multiple heads? How could I possibly ignore the Crown Prince's errand-running orders?"
In the candlelight, Li Jin took a deep breath, his signature smile plastered on his face.
If it weren't for the twitching in the corner of his eye, which betrayed his inner dissatisfaction, Jin Shu would have almost been fooled by that smile.
Li Jin stood up, grabbed the jade flute from the table, walked around from behind the table, pointed at Jin Shu's nose, and said with a smile, "What's wrong? Chen Lan killed her brother, and you feel uncomfortable and choked up?"
"The current Crown Prince is the mastermind behind the murder of my brother's entire family six years ago. As my man, shouldn't you at least consider my feelings when you're running errands for him?"
The rain outside was getting heavier and heavier, as if the sky had a hole in it, and it was gradually pouring down like water.
Inside the room, Jin Shu's face showed shock, surprise, regret, and a fleeting pang of heartache, which fell into Li Jin's eyes.
Her mouth opened and closed, and after a long while, she only managed to utter three words: "I'm sorry."
Who knew there was such a hidden story!
Strictly speaking, this is a royal scandal. How could a commoner like her possibly know such things?
"I...I didn't know there was such a thing."
The inside story...
Li Jin's face froze: "What did you say?"
"Huh?" Jin Shu was stunned, and hesitated for a moment before saying, "I'll tell you the inside story."
Two words revealed to him the key to the case that Li Jin had overlooked.
How did Chen Lan find out about the matter of the legitimate son and the illegitimate son, something that even the Chen family members themselves didn't know?
Li Jin stood there, his eyes lowered, lost in thought for a long time.
He returned to the table and picked up Huang Liangping's confession from the case notes.
He carefully flipped through the thick stack of papers, page by page, and on the last two pages, Su Shangxuan asked the crucial question.
However, Huang Liangping's answer was shocking.
He said: Everyone knows that, that's what everyone says.
Su Shangxuan asked which prominent figures he was referring to, and he replied: "The wealthy young men in my social circle, and even some minor officials."
Is he really overthinking things?
Li Jin held the piece of paper in her hand and stood there motionless for a long time.
Chen Wen's marriage and concubines were not something to hide, and consequently, some people knew that the children in the Chen family were born to his wife and concubines one after the other.
Could it be that these rumors have gone astray over time, misleading Huang Liangping and causing him to ignore his gambling addiction and laziness, instead venting all his resentment on Chen Feng?
“Huang Liangping has no reason to lie.” Jin Shu leaned halfway out from behind Li Jin, her gaze falling on the confession in his hand.
“He has already confessed, and he has told us the details of how he killed and dismembered the body. There is no point in hiding how he found out about this.”
Looking at the statement in Li Jin's hand, Jin Shu could roughly guess what he was thinking.
But she was still puzzled: "Are legitimate sons and illegitimate sons particularly valued in the capital? I think it's about the same in Dingzhou. It seems that apart from the difference in dowries between legitimate and illegitimate sons when daughters get married, I haven't heard that it has a great influence on the sons as well."
Li Jin knew, of course, that Huang Liangping had no reason to lie. He just felt that things weren't so simple, yet he couldn't quite grasp the seemingly unusual clue.
After a short while, he put down the confession in his hand and spoke slowly: "In the capital, the distinction between嫡庶 (legitimate and illegitimate children) is more important than in the provinces. One's birth, family background, and social status are all very important."
He slowly organized the statement in his hand and put it back into the case notes in front of him.
“Jin Shu, after a while, I will arrange for your younger brother to study at the Imperial Academy. He will have a page who will accompany him and he can only come back for one day a month.”
After Li Jin finished speaking, he turned to look at Jin Shu's face: "Now that the Crown Prince knows of your existence and recognizes your appearance, it is not safe for you and Jin Rong to live in the outer courtyard. However, if we rashly settle both of you in the Prince's Mansion, it would only make us seem like we are trying to cover something up."
The Imperial Academy? A Prince's Residence? Is this an attempt to cover up the truth?
The string of words left Jin Shu stunned for a moment.
Not everyone can enter the Imperial Academy. Jin Shu's ancestors did not hold high enough official positions, meaning that Jin Rong was not qualified to be a hereditary student.
Furthermore, Jin Shu really didn't understand why Li Jin still wanted to arrange for her to go to the Prince's mansion after the Crown Prince had met her.
She's a woman, and now she has her own little courtyard, where she can enjoy moments of leisure. If she went to the Prince's mansion, forget about having her own space; just worrying about her identity being exposed every day would probably make her lose all her hair.
Therefore, she was completely baffled by Li Jin's claim of trying to cover up the truth and had no idea what to say.
Seeing her puzzled expression, Li Jin chuckled and explained, "Six years ago, the struggle for the throne among the royal family in the capital had far-reaching consequences. You should have heard about it."
He leaned against the desk, arms crossed, a faint smile on his face.
“The eldest prince, Li Mu, was falsely accused of treason, and overnight, everyone in the Crown Prince’s residence was imprisoned.” He paused, “except for one person.”
Outside, the sound of heavy rain made Li Jin's voice inside sound dry and desolate.
He glanced at the misty courtyard outside the window, the curve of his profile falling into Jin Shu's eyes.
That face, though only twenty-five or twenty-six years old, seemed to have experienced too many vicissitudes of life, radiating a mature and capable temperament from the inside out, like the water in a deep pool in a ten-thousand-year-old karst cave, clear, cold, and detached, as if it were a banished immortal.
“Besides the Crown Princess at the time, Cen Shishi, the second young lady of the Cen family,” he said, “at that time, the Cen family was in dire straits. She was a woman, six months pregnant, and quite cleverly bypassed the Cen family, escaping alone.”
Li Jin turned around, a smile curving her lips and her eyes crinkling into crescents: "If the Crown Prince finds out, my trip to Jiangnan has brought back a coroner and a child who is over six years old..."
At this point, Jin Shu understood.
It's truly a case of "trying to cover up the truth only makes it more obvious," and there's no way to clear one's name even if one jumps into the Yellow River.
“The Crown Prince is ruthless and rarely takes action himself.” Li Jin stepped forward, glancing at Jin Shu’s furrowed brows. “But regardless of whether he takes action personally or not… if an assassin were to fall from the sky while you’re sleeping soundly through the night, could you handle it?”
Jin Shu pursed her lips and shook her head firmly: "No."
Then, she cupped her hands and bowed, saying, "I will follow Your Highness's arrangements."
After saying that, she looked up and glanced at Li Jin with surprise: "But... is it so easy to get into the Imperial Academy?"
"Besides being admitted through hereditary privilege, there's another way to get into the Imperial Academy: by donating money." Li Jin's lips curled up even higher as he said this. "You can get in by donating money."
At this point, Jin Shu's lips twitched a few times.
"It's not very expensive, five hundred taels will do." Li Jin waved his hand and sighed, "It's just a little more than the cost of a meal. Compared to Jin Rong's life, this amount of money is nothing."
Jin Shu straightened up, looking at Li Jin with one eyebrow higher than the other.
During this period, Jin Shu's evaluation of this man had just changed from a strangely stingy boss to a reasonably capable boss.
Based on this one sentence alone, it quickly plummeted to an outrageous level.
She clicked her tongue, and after a long pause, she finally managed to utter two words: "No money!"
Then, like a deflated balloon, his momentum halved, he frowned and kept glancing to the side: "Could you...could you lend it to me first..."
Li Jin raised her eyebrows and nodded seriously: "Of course."
He deliberately put his arm around Jin Shu's shoulder: "We're brothers, I can help with this little thing."
But then he changed the subject: “However… five hundred taels is not a small amount. You need to give me something as collateral so that I can feel more at ease.”
"Things?" Jin Shu asked, puzzled. He shook his head. "I'm penniless. I have nothing."
Li Jin narrowed his eyes slightly and said with a smile, "What about Jin Rong?"
A hint of surprise flashed across Jin Shu's face as she looked at Li Jin: "Then I'll go back and ask him. Don't get your hopes up too high; what valuable things could a little kid possibly have?"
“A jade pendant will do.” Li Jin stopped and watched Jin Shu’s expression change. “In Dingzhou, when a son is born, the mother will give the child a jade pendant. The one your mother gave him back then, although it’s not worth much, is very meaningful. It’s enough to be used as collateral with me.”
Wearing jade pendants.
Jin Shu hesitated.
Back then, after giving birth to him, Jin Rong's birth mother did indeed give Jin Shu a piece of white, lustrous jade.
She raised her head, met Li Jin's gaze, pondered for a long time, and finally uttered a single word.
"good."
At that moment, a barely perceptible light flashed in Li Jin's eyes.
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